Morning Joe - Morning Joe 7/18/23

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

Trump plans to expand executive power if he's elected: NYT

2024 is our final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists, fascists. We will throw off the sick deep state that is against him. There is new reporting this morning on Trump's much darker vision for the country. His advisers are crafting autocratic plans for the presidency if he wins in 2024. That reporting is in line with a warning from Trump's former chief of staff about what a second Trump term could mean for America.

Meanwhile, a prominent Democrat is leaving the door open for a third party run for president. We'll show you what Senator Joe Manchin is saying about that possibility. Also ahead, the latest from Eastern Europe, where Russian President Vladimir Putin is promising to retaliate for an attack on a crucial supply bridge for his forces. A lot to get to you on this Tuesday morning on July 18th. Good morning, everyone, along with Joe, Willie and me. We have former White House press secretary now on MSNBC host Jen Psaki, host of way too early in White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post and MSNBC political analyst Eugene Robinson and author and NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss. And Joe, great special last night. It's Joe 24-7, prime time and first thing in the morning.

I'm impressed. Great job. Look at that clap. Hey. Look at that clap. That's Pelosi-esque. Pelosi-esque clap. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Very good. Yeah, I'm really excited. You were here last night. Yeah, I was here too. Oh, my gosh. The Iron Woman of TV. Yeah, I'm really excited. You were here last night. Yeah, I was here. The Iron Woman. Yeah. Cal Ripken. Well, I've got a lot to talk about. First of all, though, it's great being on the New York set because I can always see the newspaper of record. And,

you know, people say, why do you call the New York Post a newspaper of record? And I just got to say it's because, you know, they handle things with such delicacy. You know, you have a human tragedy. I know you have a human tragedy. And I know too much about the pain and the cost of divorce. And I think the New York Post handles it like, well, you'd expect the New York Post to handle a divorce. Now, thank you. Busted up.

Yeah. Gals. Exactly. Sophia Vergara is getting divorced. So there you go. So the newspaper record busted up. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. Our lead story of the morning, apparently. Apparently. I just learned about it 19 seconds ago. I same here. Same here. So speaking of busted up, Willie, the American League East once run by the New York Yankees and Red Sox. Wow. Now we're we're the doormats of the AL. Well, we're the doormats of the AL East. The New York Yankees' sole possession of last place. You've got to figure out, Lemire, how to low-key it, okay?

False modesty. There you go. An art form. When they're in last place, you say we're in last place. You require them to explain to the world how they're actually in last place. Instead of you looking like a front runner just saying they're in last when they go low we go high is that the no no it's all false modesty to break their hearts even more at the end so right now what you're saying is i mean we're no it's a marathon really this is a

marathon you guys you've got the kick at the end. We've got no chance. I think, if you really want me to be honest, you guys probably end up winning the Ailes by seven, eight, nine games. Bear Bryant taught you very, very well, didn't he? He did. We've got no chance against Appalachian State. Swear to God, we would beat Ole Miss 63 to nothing that interview. Coach, what do you think? After the game, you go, I'm just so embarrassed.

The good mamas and daddies of Alabama didn't trust me. They're children. I just let them down. interview coach what do you think after the game you go i'm just so embarrassed the good the good mamas and daddies of alabama didn't trust me their children i just let them down today i just pray to god they don't take them out of my school and take them over to hall that's lamere this is what you do all right okay it's like when paul mccartney arrives with the beatles at jfk all the all the reporters scream you're no good why are you here why? Why are you here? There's a mob. And Paul McCartney says, we're not. Why are you here? You see, you disarm them. So what's this? Watch what I'm doing. Are you ready? We'll take it from the top. 605. So listen, the Red Sox and the Yankees were doormats at the AL East. I got to say, you guys probably going to win by seven,

eight, nine games. I think the fact that right now you're a little up, it's going to make that charge into first place even more. Well, Joe, you're nice to say that, and I'm flattered and disarmed by your comments. What I would add is that actually it is us, the New York Yankees, in sole possession of last place. But I appreciate your generosity. The Yankees are in last place right now, alone, nine games back, for the first time this late in the season since 1990, when Milli Vanilli was burning up the charts.

1990. That is generationally bad right now for the New York Yankees. It didn't help that they were playing the Angels. Shohei Otani tying the game with a two-run home run in the seventh, his 35th of the season. We're just watching something, John, that we've never seen before. And even as a Yankee fan, it's just fun to watch. Okay, here's your test, John. Two thoughts here. First, just simply on Otani first, that he is spectacular. And the biggest storyline in baseball for the next two weeks is whether the Angels trade him because they're

about to fall out of the log card race. He's on pace to challenge Aaron Judge's home run record set just a year ago. But as far as the Yankees go, I mean, this is setting up such a storybook September. The comeback for the Bronx Bombers. You know, the little team that could. It's in their blood. It's in their blood. You saw this heartening.

I see what they're doing. This is like Secretary of Belmont. The track record speaks for itself. The 27 titles, the dozens upon dozens of pennants. This will be one of those Yankee teams that's remembered throughout history. Like the 27 Yankees, the 61 Yankees. Exactly. The 2000 Yankees.

And what happens? The latest edition. You're going too far. And what happens? 2003, what do they do? They break our hearts. 1978, they break our hearts. 1978, they break our hearts. That's what they do.

You know what 2003 sets up? 2004. For you guys, I think we can all celebrate what's happening. Let me tell you something. Even a blind squirrel can fight a knight every once in a while, Willie. Oh my God. I just got to say, before we do anything else, word association.

Joe Manchin. Center. Likes to be the center of attention. I don't mean center of the party. I mean, center of attention. Likes to be talked about. Okay. Well, we'll figure out how much we want to talk about Joe, our good friend Joe, today.

Yeah, he's... Do you think he really wants to help a fascist get elected president? Because it will be, that will be his legacy for the rest of his life. Joe Manchin helped elect a fascist before that was senator and governor. I think he likes being asked if he's going to run for president. And I think he's got some time now to be buzzed about until January when he has to decide if he's going to run for reelection. So he's going to sit in the buzz. OK, sit in the buzz. OK, sit in the buzz, Mika.

That was perfectly put. Perfectly put. Why don't you sit in the buzz and do the news for us? All right. As polls show, I don't even know what that meant. Donald Trump leading the field of the 2024 Republican candidates. His potential radical plans for a second term are coming into clearer view. According to The New York Times, Trump and his allies are planning a, quote, sweeping

expansion of presidential power should the former president retake the White House. This would reportedly include giving Trump the power to withhold funds from any government program or agency that he doesn't like, including the Federal Trade and Federal Communications Commissions. Within those agencies, the Times reports, Trump intends to, quote, strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to his agenda. Among Trump's other top targets would be the State Department, Defense Department, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to his agenda.

Among Trump's other top targets would be the State Department, Defense Department and intelligence agencies to replace people who he has deemed part of the, quote, sick political class that hates our country. All of this would be done under the framework of a decades-old conservative legal theory, which rejects the idea of a three-branch system of government and the fundamental concept of checks and balances. Instead, according to The Times, supporters of that theory argue that Article 2 of the Constitution gives the president complete control of the executive branch, so Congress cannot empower agency heads to make decisions or restrict the president's ability to fire them. In a statement to The Times, a Trump campaign spokesperson did not deny the plans, but instead said the former president has, quote, laid out a bold and transparent agenda for his second term. And this is one of those vintage Trump moments, Joe, where his base will love this in some ways. Well, they'll love it as we talked about last night,

because it suggests that he's strong and authoritarianism has swept the Republican Party. It used to be small government, small government's been replaced by authoritarianism. You can look at Ron DeSantis to see if a baseball team, a professional baseball team, tweets their sympathy for Uvalde. He actually uses the power of the central state to punish that baseball team. If Walt Disney talks to the largest employer in the state, mind you, decides that they're going to celebrate diversity. He uses all the powers of the centralized state to try to to to break corporations, to intimidate corporations. It's authoritarianism. And even even cruise liners to open up during the pandemic without using any safeguards. He does the same small business owners. But this is what this is what Donald Trump is talking about.

And, you know, Michael Beschloss, this is what Orban does in Hungary. This is what was happening in Poland before the war. The whole idea was use the centralized state to crush any dissent, whether it's in the bureaucracy, as Applebaum talked about, the twilight of democracy where loyalty replaces competence, whether you're talking about in the media sphere, where you intimidate and get rid of media opponents. What about, again, the FCC, Donald Trump having the sole power to decide whether this network or other networks he doesn't like actually are on the air or not? That's what we're talking about here. Talk about the danger, the level of danger to American democracy? Well, if you love Mussolini, you will love what

Donald Trump is talking about for 2025. Mussolini followed the unitary executive theory, too, which meant total power to the dictator, no constraints. This is about as un-American, I think you will all agree, as anything I've ever heard. I mean, the reason why this country was founded was as a rebuke to the British king. We wanted to develop a system where you could not have a king. You could not have a dictator. Power was under constraint. When you were Tuscaloosa, Joe, I'm sure that you talked about, as you have ever since,

the fact that there are checks and balances, three branches of government. That's all James Madison, who used to be a conservative hero, now comes along Donald Trump, the first major candidate in American history to say outright, I want a presidential dictatorship. I can't think of anything that's more out of the American tradition. And it's it really is, Willie. It's from from Madison, who was a conservative hero for generations from Madison to Mussolini, all the power in the executive branch, the power to shut down TV stations, the power to prefer certain businesses to other businesses. It is exactly what fascists do. Yeah, this is pure strongman stuff. And they're saying it out loud. They're saying this is what

we're going to do. You watch this in the first term. It's going to be even worse in the second term. Just saying it. So here's Trump's former chief of staff, John Kelly, also warning about the possibility of a second term for the former president. Kelly told The New York Times, quote, it would be chaotic. It simply would be chaotic because he'd continually be trying to exceed his authority. But the sycophants would go along with it. It would be a nonstop gunfight with the Congress and the courts. And so you can imagine Eugene Robinson, a scenario where instead of General Kelly or General Mattis or any of the people who said they stayed in those jobs to provide guardrails because they worried about what was behind them won't be there.

And I say this only slightly kidding that Mr. Pillow would be the man in the Oval Office giving guidance and advice to Donald Trump. Not kidding. Don't laugh. It would be people like Mr. Pillow and Sidney Powell and the entire crazy lunatic fringe that gathered around Donald Trump and that will enable this move toward fascism. I mean, this is textbook fascism. And it's it's outrageous. It's incredibly dangerous, not just to to our system of democracy and our democratic values. It's just it's just dangerous because he's talking about wanting to essentially fire the people in the federal bureaucracy who who know how to run things, who make the country work, who keep our air clean and our water safe, and who keep us safe in the intelligence agencies and in the Defense Department. And everywhere he sees somebody who doesn't toe the line, who doesn't go along with every

crazy anti-democratic idea he has, he wants the ability to fire that person and replace him or her with a lackey. That's what he wants. That's what he intends. We should believe him when he says it. And this is a great danger to the country that we know. And it's confronted with this possibility, Jen, that senior people in the Pentagon think that were Trump to return to office, there would be no guardrails.

He would be completely unfettered. He also, importantly, wouldn't have to face voters again. So there's no consequences. That they feel like this could be the American experiment itself would be in jeopardy. Yeah. So with that in mind, how realistic you've obviously just come out of federal government not too long ago. How realistic is that he could enact about some of these? Are there any checks and balances that could get in his way? Could

Congress play a role, assuming they're not all just Republicans bowing down to him? How does this work? Well, I think it's important to remember that some of these independent some of these agencies that are independent is by tradition. And presidents of Republican and Democratic presidents have respected that. Donald Trump has made no indication he's going to respect that. He did not in his first term. And when I speak with national security officials in the Pentagon or former officials, they will say a second term is far scarier than a first. Now, beyond his intention of, say, self-pardoning himself, should he need, which his legal team and his advisors seem to be even

talking about privately, the other concern here is that he could use these regulatory agencies and outside agencies for his own personal benefit. Think about the FTC. Nobody talks about the FTC as something they care about on a daily basis, I bet. But this has this agency has an enormous amount of control over companies being regulated. He could decide that company is my political enemy. I'm going to hurt them. I want to that company to benefit so I can financially benefit. And by the way, that's exactly what Orban has done. Yes, but he does. He doesn't throw people that run businesses he's supposed to into jail. He begins government investigations. He finds them. He taxes them. He put he levies such a heavy burden on them that by the end, one of his allies who go, hey, listen, why don't you just let me buy you out?

You look around and suddenly Orban has no opponents in the press. Suddenly the press, it's, you know, again, he does it exactly the way you're talking about Trump doing it. Yes, it feeds into the potential for corruption, because if you are a private sector company, aren't you going to try to get into the good side of Donald Trump or somebody who can control which companies are regulated or which are not? So it feeds into that as well. And, you know, to go back to your original question there, Jonathan, I mean, I think the challenge here is whether our system is set up

for a second Trump term. I mean, the people who have been elected, you may disagree with them politically or their policies, but they have respected, for the most part, rule of law. And when agencies need to be independent for good reason. That is not something that Trump and not just Trump, though. Also, DeSantis and others running for president have indicated they want to do away with these checks and balances that have been a part of our government for hundreds of years. Well, and Michael Beschloss, Ron DeSantis actually offers a very good warning about what happens in a second Trump term with somebody who's learned his lessons instead of just being a bloviator that goes to Twitter when he's angry.

Ron DeSantis has actually given him perfect examples. This is how you crush businesses. This is how you intimidate CEOs. Again, I was talking this past week, and the Republican that's worked for the Republican Party for a generation, who said DeSantis, the free state of Florida, is a joke. This person said, I deal with CEOs every day who are petrified, petrified that Ron DeSantis will notice them. And they're keeping their heads down. They're not doing it because they know he has the ability to use the power of the centralized state to crush them or to make their lives miserable. Right.

And you've got the front runner of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, the number two candidate by polls, Ron DeSantis or DeSantis or whatever it is. They're both fascists. They both want authoritarianism in America. And the thing I can't understand, maybe you can all enlighten me. Why did Donald Trump make an effort to announce this last couple of days? He wants to make people afraid. He wants people to think that authoritarianism and Trump are inevitable and bow to him and make it much easier for him to walk in in 16 months.

Well, this is a man who needs to walk in in 16 months if he wants to skirt the law. He is running for president, and that's probably the only way he could avoid the legal issues he's facing. Later today, the first pretrial hearing in the federal criminal case involving former President Donald Trump and his handling of classified documents. It'll take place in a South Florida courtroom. Lawyers for both Trump and co-defendant Walt Nada are slated to be present, but neither Trump nor Nada is expected to attend. The hearing was originally scheduled to go over the rules and procedures for how documents containing sensitive information would be handled and presented in the case. But NBC News has learned Judge Aileen Cannon has now ordered both sides to be prepared to discuss the dispute over when the trial should take place. Judge Cannon initially scheduled the trial to begin next month on August 14th. Prosecutors in special counsel Jack Smith's office have requested the trial begin on December 11th. But lawyers for

Trump want the trial delayed until after the 2024 presidential election. Willie. So while this is going on, there's Georgia. Former President Trump has lost his latest attempt to shut down the Fulton County, Georgia election interference probe. The Georgia Supreme Court denied a petition by the Trump team to stop the Fulton County DA's investigation. Fannie Willis has been looking into whether the former president and his associates broke the law in their attempts to overturn the 2020 Georgia election results. The rejected request was one of two filed by Trump's lawyers last week. The petition asked the court to remove Willis from the case

and to quash a report from the special grand jury she used during the investigation. The nine-judge state Supreme Court ruled unanimously against Trump and his lawyers, saying they did not prove the, quote, extraordinary circumstances required to close the case. A representative for the former president did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment. The office for D.A. Willis declined to comment as well. So, John, this sort of folds into your book, The Big Lie, about what happened in the state of Georgia, among many other places. But this was a unanimous decision from not exactly in the state of Georgia, a lefty Supreme Court. And they said, no,

absolutely. This attempt, we're putting it down. The trial or the potential trial moves on. Yeah. And at least for now, it's another example of how the system held the legal system here. The court system in the United States has held against Donald Trump's lies. All eyes will be on Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida to see what she decides about the start of that trial. But this was a pretty swift rebuke yesterday from Georgia. And certainly, Eugene Robinson, Georgia has always presented a particular challenge to those in the Trump world. People that I talk to there are deeply nervous about it for obvious reasons. We talked about earlier, if Trump can be elected again, well, he'll have the power of the federal government at hand and also potentially the power to pardon himself. I mean, I'm sure there'll be

legal challenges to that, but he can at least try. He can't do that in a state conviction. So that's why the DA there, Fannie Willis, has received so much scrutiny. And there's a ticking clock. She has sent word that this is probably coming down in early August. So speak to us, if you will, just how important you think this is. How carefully should we be watching Georgia, even as it has been kind of drowned out by the headlines from the classified documents case? Well, it's vitally important. We should be watching it very, very closely. And it zooms to the top of the list now. I mean, Georgia, you recall, is where there is a tape recording of that phone call between Donald Trump and Brad Raffensperger in which he asks him to find just enough votes, find

just enough votes to overturn Joe Biden's win in Georgia. If Fannie Willis believes there is a criminal case to be brought against Donald Trump in Georgia, and it certainly looks like there is to me, then, yes, she needs to move. And it's it's this is prime time. It's time to to move ahead with that case. And as you say, a state conviction cannot be pardoned. It's unclear whether a self-pardon would work for a president in any case, even in a federal conviction, but it certainly doesn't work in a state conviction. And so it's heartening that the Georgia Supreme Court just sort of rejected out of hand this claim that Trump was making about

the investigations about being improper. Now, if she's got the goods, it's time to bring the case. All right. NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss, thanks very much for being on this morning. And we've got a lot to get to still ahead on Morning Joe. The Kremlin is blaming Ukraine after an attack on the bridge that connects Crimea to mainland Russia. We'll have the latest on the war as Vladimir Putin now is vowing a response. Plus, it seems Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is flirting with a third party presidential ticket after appearing with former Republican Governor John Huntsman at a campaign style event in New Hampshire yesterday. We'll get a live report from Manchester and tomorrow morning, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi will be our guest.

You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. It's half past the hour. Russian President Vladimir Putin is vowing to respond to an attack on the bridge that connects Crimea to mainland Russia. Multiple explosions on the bridge were reported just before dawn yesterday, with Russia's government claiming it was hit by two drones. Two people were killed in the attack and a third was injured. The Kremlin immediately blamed Ukraine, while a Ukrainian public broadcaster cited multiple law enforcement sources as saying Ukraine's intel agency and Navy carried it out. NBC News has not confirmed those reports. Yesterday, Russia also announced

it will not extend the agreement to let Ukraine export grain through its Black Sea ports. The Kremlin says that decision is unrelated to the attack on the bridge. Joe. Yeah, you know, Willie, when you've been committing war crimes for a year and a half, I think you kind of you've run out of things to do as far as threat. Oh, we're going to have a response to you blowing up the bridge. I mean, he's already committed war crimes for a year and a half. Yeah. And I think he's lost the benefit of the doubt in who blew up that bridge.

Every time there's some question, they say the Ukrainians did it to themselves. I'm not sure many people outside of Moscow are believing him. Join us now. NBC News chief international correspondent Keir Simmons has been covering this war so closely, spent lots of time inside of Russia. Keir, we can start with this latest bridge attack. We've seen these before. Yeah. Where there's an attack or an explosion and Russia says it was Ukraine self-sabotaging to gain sympathy from the world, et cetera, et cetera. What's your assessment of where things stand over there right now?

Well, they didn't bring down the bridge. They damaged the bridge. And they've done that before. Russia managed to repair it relatively quickly. You know, it's an emotional blow as well as a strategic blow to President Putin. If they did bring the entire bridge down, that would be a major challenge because of the supply line issues for Russia. But in many ways, targeting this bridge is psychological warfare. It's the Ukrainians. We know they haven't said it's them, but it clearly, frankly, is them. It's the Ukrainians sending a message to President Putin. I mean, listen, I think the grain deal, the bridge, all of this really paints

a picture of no capitulation by either side. There's absolutely no sign that either side is interested in anything other than continuing this conflict on the surface anyway. And there's lots going on beneath the surface that we don't know about. Well, let's talk about what's going on beneath the surface inside of Russia. You had a scene out of The Sopranos that you were we were talking about before off the air, a scene out of The Sopranos with Putin, of course, head of the family. You have Lukashenko next door interested in moving in. What's going on internally in Russia from the best that you can tell? Yeah, I mean, I spend time in Moscow, right? So Russia is 11 time zones. It's an enormous country.

Judging exactly what the psychology is and the thinking is amongst, you know, 140 million Russians, not easy. In Moscow, though, one of the striking aspects is you're trying to struggle for words. I mean, how relaxed it is, how much people are kind of going about their business, how much, and we've kind of stopped talking about this economically, certainly amongst the privileged in Moscow. There's little indication that there's any kind of challenge for them. Why is that? Is it a kind of nihilism? Is it that genuinely this conflict is a long way away from them effectively? I will say that I've noticed in the time that I've been there talking to Russians more and more to the point now where almost everybody is talking about knowing somebody who's lost somebody.

And that's what I was going to ask you about at the beginning of this war. People said, well, it might be like Afghanistan. It was some others that eventually rose up and got the Russians out of Afghanistan. Complaining here, you've got maybe 100,000 deaths already. I mean, this is just horrific. I mean, you look again, compare that to the United States. We lost about 5,000 men and women in uniform over 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it was it was a great scar. Yeah. On our politics, on our culture here.

A hundred thousand dead. Yeah. Where are the mothers? We don't know that. We don't know the number. I mean, the number is we don't know the actual number, but it's a lot. I mean, there's no question. I'm basing it to British intel, which, of course, we trust. Yeah, great. We're suggesting that casualties could be that high. But regardless, it's massive. So where are the protests? Where are the concerns?

Well, exactly. I mean, that's kind of another way of making the same point, that when you travel to Russia, as I do, you don't notice that kind of level of resistance. I mean, remember, a lot of people who might be resistant have left. Have left. You can't necessarily... How bad is the brain drain?

And I cut in here. I think this may be one of, economically, one of the greatest or most horrific legacies for Russia, that the best of the brightest... But not necessarily for President Putin. He has an election next year. A lot of the people who might have voted against him might not be there anymore. So there's that aspect. You know, look, I think it's important not to judge how people will react to losing loved ones. I mean, we're seeing really the deep, deep polarization on both sides. I think, you know, on both sides, there's a kind of a version of Dolce e Decorum

es Perpacito Amore, you know, with people, you know, it's right. So, you know, families who have lost loved ones, Russian families who have lost loved ones may be reacting to that by saying, OK, well, now I am more patriotic, more nationalistic. Now, in terms of progession, that could be the curtain pulling back and giving us a sign that there are changes happening. Certainly the psychology of thousands and thousands of Russians who have been on the front lines coming back to Russia, I think that's an interesting question. So there is all that. Having said that, though, what we have seen just talking about the facts,

what we've seen is potentially the greatest threat to President Putin, the Wagner Group insurrection, failing. Putin is still in position. It's just these are just many different ways of saying right frankly we don't know what happens next hey willie i'm going to be conjugating that late latin phrase sure and while i'm doing that i went to alabama this may take a while you have the next question you're often seen early morning hours muttering that as you walk through central park authorities come and put a blanket over you and to your loved ones disturbs me yeah it's. Yeah, it's strange. You won't think about it. Go ahead. So, you know, obviously it goes back

to World War I. Well, of course. So it's like, that's where... No, we don't. What do you say, we Americans are stupid? No, I'm not.

No, we don't. No, we don't learn Latin. This is not going in the direction I'd hoped. Let me pull it back in your direction. Hold on, hold on. Give us the phrase again.

What's the phrase again? Don't you aid the car or mess perpetually unlawly. Okay. And that means? It's right and glorious to back in your direction. Give us the phrase again. What's the phrase? Don't you aid the car mess perpetually on morning. OK. And that means it's right and glorious to die for your country. See? Nailed it. It's just how we learned it in Tuscaloosa. Next question.

So, Kir, when we were talking at the start of this, you said there is no sign of capitulation from either side, which is true when you look at the grain deal that Putin pulled out of, which means now Ukraine can't export grain the way it wants to, which was viewed as an olive branch from the U.N. and Turkey a year or so ago. So how are how are you viewing this as someone who covers it? How are experts inside Russia and around this war viewing some possible end to this? There are some who have said Putin is waiting out the American presidential election. If he gets Donald Trump, that's a good thing for him. He knows that Donald Trump will cave and take his side on this. Is that a fair assessment of Putin's thinking? Russia has long experience going back to the Crimean War in the 19th century, has long

experienced that the West doesn't last. So you would understand why in the Kremlin they might be thinking that that might be a possibility. I do think that the grain deal, the lapsing of the grain deal, I mean, there wasn't much grain being exported at this point, but the deal no longer now today in place is, I think, potentially a sign of the Kremlin hunkering down further, back further in its bunker. It's interesting, by the way, China was the primary recipient of a lot of that grain. So and of course, Turkey was part of the negotiation. Turkey has made this extraordinary shift towards the West. So what does that tell us about how President Putin is kind of viewing his position in the world and potentially? So, you know, I think there are things to

understand from that grain deal about the geopolitics beyond just deep concern for many of the poorer countries that were receiving grain in terms of the potential for a deal. There is no potential for a deal. This is all about territory. And neither side is interested in ceding anything. We talk about the Chinese peace plan. It's not a peace plan. It's, it's a Russia keeps its territory, keeps the territory plan. But by the way, the Ukrainian peace plan isn't a peace plan either. It's a Ukraine gets all the territory back.

We should stop calling them peace plans and call them victories plans. I mean, it's what they are. So, you know, there's no side of that. And unless something is happening again, and it's what they are. So, you know, there's no sign of that. And unless something is happening again, and it's quite possible, unless something is happening behind the iron curtain, if you like, in Kremlin ology, which we don't understand, I don't see how we see an end to this anytime soon. So one of the big questions, I mean, there's so many questions about that day of the short-lived march toward Moscow, is not just where is Pergozan,

but where are these Wagner troops? Because they play have played such a key role for the Russian for the Russian effort. So what is your assessment on how many of them are still fighting in Ukraine? How many of them are willing to? Are many of them in Belarus? What do we know about? I mean, you know, a bunch of them now appear to be in Belarus. We were in Belarus a few weeks ago at one of the camps that they had prepared. Now they seem to be there. Belarus is saying they're there to train Belarus soldiers. That's clearly not going to be the whole story. I think I do think that a bunch of this is being made up as as each day, you know, they're kind of making up as they go along.

I mean, in the end, that deal that they pieced together to get Bogosian and the Wagner group to turn around on the M4 freeway to Moscow, that was clearly kind of cobbledplexed them figure this out, you know, each stage of this out. There is clearly a move by the Kremlin to remove members of the military who supported the insurrection. And that's part of the puzzle. But this is Kremlinology. And you just don't know what is really going on behind those Kremlin walls right now, I think. All right. NBC's Keir Simmons, thank you very much for coming on this morning. And coming up, our next guest writes, the ridiculous state of the modern American democracy is a system where the rich get elected and the elected get rich. Senior

columnist for The Daily Beast, Matt Lewis, joins us with more on his new book, Filthy Rich Politicians. And a little later, we'll dig into a new piece that lays out a key way to stop Donald Trump from becoming our next president. Morning Joe is coming right back. It is 46 past the hour, a beautiful morning in Washington, D.C., probably another hot one, right? The Powerball jackpot rose to $1 billion this morning after no winner emerged after the drawing last night. It marks the third largest jackpot in U.S. history. However, it has a ways to go to beat the top spot. That belongs to the 2022 prize, which was valued at over $2 billion. However, if you were to win the current pot in New York state and chose an annuity

payout, you would eventually take home roughly half a billion dollars. That amount would make you the actually wealthier than the richest member of Congress right now, but not by very much. And speaking of that, joining us now, senior columnist for the Daily Beast, Matt Lewis. He's the author of a new book out today entitled Filthy Rich Politicians, the Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals and Ruling Class Elites Cashing In on America. So tell us about your book, Matt, and who are you looking at here exactly? Well, I'm really looking at all of them. The richest politician in America is actually J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois. The richest congressman, member of Congress, is probably Rick Scott, senator from Florida. Politicians make it hard

to know exactly how rich they are. They write the laws and the disclosures, and it's usually a broad range. So we don't know exactly how rich they are. But look, this book is about how the rich get elected and the elected get rich. I think both parts of that equation are important, starting with the fact that rich people tend to get elected. In fact, right now, the average member of Congress, and I'm not talking about president or senator, but just your average House of Representatives member is something like 12 times richer than the average American household. And that gap has grown in recent decades. And I argue that there's some disconnect between our elected officials and we, the people. But I think even more corrosive than that is the other side of the equation,

which is the fact that once people get elected, they almost always get richer. And I think that, you know, if you look at talk about how the game game is rigged, I think there is a sense out there that our politicians are using their position to feather their nest. And I think that is undermining trust in elected officials and in liberal democracy. And I think it's a problem. So, Matt, when I served, I mean, most members that I knew in the House were like me. I mean, I came to Congress with a couple of hound dogs and a Buick Skylark with three tires on it. Didn't have a whole lot of money, but everybody I served with, not everybody, but most of the people I served with, you know, didn't have a whole lot of money. They're very, very middle class background. When did this change?

It has been going on for about three or four decades when it is really, I think, kind of reached the level that we're at now, Joe. Again, we've always had rich presidents. You know, George Washington was rich, obviously. FDR, Theodore Roosevelt, the Kennedys. That's not a new thing. What is new is that the average member of the House of Representatives, and this is the lower chamber, right? It's what Madison wanted to be, you know, something of a deliberative body that represented the people that was the closest to the American people. The average member of Congress, I think it was in 2014, became a

millionaire. And so I think that the gap has widened. And in the last four decades, the average member of Congress has something like doubled their net worth, while the rest of us are kind of treading water or maybe even going backwards in some cases. So, Matt, I guess the question you just alluded to this is, does it matter? Does it matter that rich people are elected to office? You mentioned FDR. JFK is often cited. George H.W. Bush. They all come from very wealthy families and did good things for people. So in your analysis, as you wrote this book, does the candidate or the politician's wealth impact the way they govern? I definitely think that our experience

impacts our worldview. I don't begrudge rich people. And honestly, if I were super rich, I'd probably be on a beach drinking a pina colada. So part of me admires the fact that people want to go to Washington and serve their country if they're wealthy. I think there are some problems, right? There's what I call the transitive property of expertise. People think that because they were successful in business, that they can automatically be good politicians. I think if you're super wealthy, if you were born with a silver spoon, it's going to be a little hard to connect and to empathize with regular Americans. But to be honest, I think a much more concerning problem is the other part of the book, which is the part where people who get elected tend to also get richer.

That is the part that I think is the most corrosive. There was a sense that people are using their position, whether it's insider trading in the stock market, land deals or whatever the case may be. You know, there was a Pew Research Center study in 2015 that showed that three quarters of Americans believe that their elected officials are using their position to advance their own self-interest, not ours. And this is in 2015. They described their elected officials as being, quote, unquote, selfish. I don't think there's any surprise that just one year later, Donald Trump runs for president. And granted, he was allegedly a billionaire.

But I think he did a very good job of talking about how the game was rigged. The swamp needed to be drained. And I do think there's a reason why that resonated. So, Matt, it sounds like a lot of your concern here is how politicians are using their job to get richer. Do you have any solutions you propose in the book? I mean, are you suggesting people should not be able to trade stock if they're in Congress, which a lot are supporting? Are there other policy proposals you think would help solve this? Absolutely. And so that is the first one, right? Since 2012, it's been illegal to engage in insider trading in Congress, but it's impossible to police. And there are a lot of examples I could cite that look very swampy, very sketchy. And so one of the

things I propose is simply to ban individual stock trading for members of Congress. You could still own mutual funds, but I think it's not too much to ask if you want to serve your country. Why wouldn't they do that, Matt? I've never understood this. Why not the ban? It makes too much sense. That's why, Joe. It makes too much sense. You know, what's funny is now almost everybody is in favor of this, and yet it doesn't happen. When I was writing this book, I got about six months out, and I started to get a little worried. They're actually going to do it. They're going to ban stock trading, which would be great for the country, bad for my book.

And then I realized, oh, no, they'll never actually do it. Everyone says they're for it, but there's always a reason they don't. The new book is entitled Filthy Rich Politicians, Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals and Ruling Class Elites Cashing In on America. Matt Lewis, thank you very much for coming on this morning and congratulations on the book. Thank you. And still ahead on Morning Joe, more on Donald Trump's new plans for expanding the scope of presidential power if he wins a second term. Plus, our next guest is questioning whether the Tennessee state government can still be considered a democracy. We'll dig into what happened after a Republican supermajority gained control and still wasn't satisfied. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Lyndon B. Johnson is very similar to Joe Biden. How are they the same? They're both

Democrat socialists. Lyndon B. Johnson was the majority leader in the Senate. Does that sound familiar? He was Vice President to Kennedy. Joe was Vice President to Obama. He was appointed as the President after JFK was assassinated. Then he was elected. His big Socialist programs were the Great Society. The Great Society were big government programs to address education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, transportation, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and welfare.

The Office of Economic Opportunity and big labor and labor unions. Now, LBJ had the Great Society, but Joe Biden had Build Back Better, and he still is working on it. The largest public investment in social infrastructure and environmental programs that is actually finishing what FDR started that LBJ expanded on and Joe Biden is attempting to complete. This commercial paid for by the Joe Biden re-election campaign 2024. I was going to say. Oh, my God. Okay, so let's get this straight.

Let's get this straight. She's talking to a group of people who are angry that Medicare became a program of the United States, that are angry that American colleges have been invested in by the government and have become the greatest institutions of learning on the planet. She is angry that American universities and colleges constantly rank at the very top among the best institutions in the world and that Medicare, that Medicare, like it now takes care of senior citizens. She is angry that rural hospitals and that nursing homes that your mom, your dad, your family members may go to are supported by Medicaid. So she's angry that the federal government has provided a safety net for senior citizens, for Medicaid, for prescription drugs. for she's angry that Joe Biden, I guess, she's angry that Joe Biden has now expanded health care benefits for veterans.

She is angry that Joe Biden is trying to help the least fortunate American. I mean, seriously, it could not have been more of an advertisement for Joe Biden. Absolutely. It's incredible. She just lists every good thing that's happened in the country since FDR. I mean, she listed transportation. Apparently, she's angry at the interstate highway system, I guess. I don't know what her beef is.

It's really crazy. And so who are these people she's talking to? Who are these people in the audience who are going to going to nod along and applaud and say, oh, yeah, all that stuff is is horrible. It might be a few people in her corner of northwest Georgia, but I don't think she's going to find very many Americans anywhere else who are going to agree with her that all of this stuff is terrible and we need to get rid of Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid and, oh yeah, let's have crappy universities instead of what we have now.

It's just incredible. Just incredible. The woman is is is really boopy. And yes, you know, Willie, I grew up spending summers with my grandmom in northwest Georgia. And I can tell you the good people of northwest Florida of northwest Georgia. They like their Medicare. They like the fact that their moms and dads, that the grandmoms, granddads can go to assisted living facilities as senior citizens when need be. And the government's there to help in the form of Medicaid. They like the fact that rural hospitals in northwest Georgia get a hell of a lot of funding, a hell of a lot of funding from Medicaid. Right. There's this idea that Republican politicians love to push only the others and urban centers get Medicaid? No, no, no, no. Ask your hospital provider in rural America, in Dalton, Georgia, how important Medicaid is for senior citizens, for working Americans in Dalton.

And they will tell you really important. How do I know? Because when I was a member of Congress, like they sat me down and said, OK, Republican boy, like, let me explain this to you. Senior citizens all over your district depend on Medicaid. They depend on Medicare. They depend on all of these things that, again, she's attacking and attacking Joe Biden for getting one bipartisan win after another bipartisan win after another bipartisan win. Marjorie Taylor Greene, DNC sleeper agent. That's what that looked like yesterday. I mean, as you said, she's speaking to a group of a few hundred people in that room who share the beliefs that she espoused there, which I don't think, to your point,

she necessarily even believes because so many of her voters depend on those things. By the way, your former colleagues at the White House, Jen, yesterday took that clip and wrote on Twitter, caught us. President Biden is working to make life easier for hardworking families. Do you just take the day off in the White House press shop after you watch that? I mean, those are some of those moments where you're just sitting in the White House and I imagine you watched that? I mean, those are some of those moments where you're just sitting in the White House and I imagine they were doing this when this happened and you're watching, you're in disbelief. Did that actually just happen?

They're probably sending it around on email. They're trying to figure out what the right thing to do is to lift this up. Sure, they were happy. She also discovered LBJ, a well-known president by most people. She seemed to just discover who that guy was. But yes, I mean, that is exactly as

everyone at this table has been saying what Joe Biden has been trying to run on the protector of people, of how government can work for you, protector of your health benefits, protector of your rights. He's still working on Build Back Better. By the way, if every Democrat would just say that, that would be helpful to Joe Biden, too. So, yes, in the White House, I assume they were sitting there thinking, don't mess this up. What should we do? Should we tweet it? Should we reply? Should we be funny? Should we be serious? Should we just let it live as it is? And I think they did a good job figuring out a good tweet there. And certainly, Jen, you know better than anybody, this is a White House that didn't shy away from the LBJ comparisons early on. They wanted to say, look, we're being transformed. We're trying to

change how government can serve its citizens, whether it was FDR or Lyndon Johnson. And this is certainly a gift from a far right congressman, but also goes to what the White House is trying to do now, which is leaning on economic issues. They understand that's a vulnerability. Polls suggest that a lot of Americans still don't feel great about how the economy is going, even though the metrics suggest improvement, inflation, cooling and Bidenomics. They've even coined the phrase and the president is going to several times this week. He did it a couple weeks ago as well. It's going to deliver speeches on the issue and they can point to even Goldman Sachs, a new analysis to suggest the chances of a recession are fading here. So they're starting this obviously some

risk by throwing both arms around the economy. But they feel like right now it's a risk worth taking. Gene, I'll say the same thing to the Biden administration that we said to the Trump administration as well. We said to the Trump administration, stop acting crazy and run on the economic, run on the economy. With the Biden administration, I'd say the same thing. I mean, you've got record low unemployment over the last year. You've got generational highs for the dollar over the last year. You look at our GDP compared to the rest of Europe, the rest of the world. It's pretty damn good. I mean, you look at our GDP. We've skyrocketed up to 25 trillion. China's stuck at 17 trillion. You add our GDP with that of Europe, we double, we double, we double China, United States and Europe.

California has higher GDP, has a bigger economy than France, than Great Britain, than India. You name it. Texas, a bigger economy than Russia. Talk about the economic miracle. Talk about bringing this country out of COVID, out of a lockdown, and how we are stronger than better when one economist after another has been saying we we can't get out of this without a recession we're going to crash and burn now as jonathan said you know we've got a 20 chance according to goldman sachs that's about average over the past 40 years of what economists have said our chances are of going into recession over the past year. Run on the economy. Talk about the economics. Talk about how, by the way, and dorks on the podcast today will go, all these numbers they don't add up to 75 percent of Americans. I think they told Pew. They feel good about where they are economically, feel good about where they are economically. Lean in, Biden. Lean in.